Real Talk on Nutrition & Hunting Stories to Back It with Kyle Kamp

Foreign. To the Hunt west podcast, here's your host, Jaden Bales.

What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of the Hunt west podcast. Today's episode is with my friend Kyle Camp of Valley to peak nutrition. I've known Kyle for a whole long time and he's helped me out a lot with getting my nutrition dialed in for the mountains both before and during hunting seasons. So I really wanted to pick his brain and get kind of the update from him. We just kind of started rolling into a conversation just as we were catching up before the podcast and I hit record. So it's kind of an awkward intro, but we get into some meat and potatoes. If you hang around for a little longer also you'll notice like the zoom Internet was cut down a little bit, but then it get really good after a couple minutes. So if you hear a little scratchy, just hang with it. It clears up. All right. I hope you enjoy this podcast and you learn a little something about nutrition, the mountains and hear a couple of good hunting stories from my friend Kyle Camp.

How have you been? This is great. So is this full? Is this your full time?

Yeah, yeah, I'm, I.

Great.

I'm riding for Eastman's a bit, do a little contract work. But I mean, mostly Hunt west is.

Is my full time gig, man, and so is that. I mean, this is me speaking naively. You're. You have clients, I would guess, and you're giving them direction on points or locations to look. Are you guiding or all the above?

Yeah, it's basically like coaching folks but using their current hunt and helping them understand how to hunt it. So that's awesome. It's very much like. I think most folks will contact me expecting to get waypoints, but walking away with, I hope a little bit more knowledge about what they're doing, not just where.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, we. I'm plan to brag you up on your own podcast eventually. That was that. But that was so true of me. Right is it's like you did send me waypoints, but I think more importantly, you also gave me a lot of tips on like where to look, particularly for the. For the season. And again, I'm a, I'm a huge fan of your. If you still have it, even the three you send the, you know, the free tips or whatever. I think if I remember right, it's three. Is it three?

Yeah.

Where you're like look high, look middle, look low. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's great, dude. It's great.

Thanks, man. I just was talking to A guy. I mean, like, depends on the level of hunter, right? But, like, this one dude is coming from out east, and I was just talking to him about that this morning. I'm like, look, here's your high spot. Low, medium. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fun.

What. What's so helpful about it is. Is it. Well, I mean, it does. I was going say it gives you a playbook, right? You can look high and. And that's very much true. In fact, like, are you recording this right now? Because this probably is good fodder for you to throw on there. In fact, it was exactly what it's. It's exactly what I found last year on my elk hunt. It was an area that I'd hunted forever, and I found elk a lot and been with guys that have killed a lot of elk in there, and I just could not for the life of me find 17 days hunting, seeing absolutely nothing, no sign of elk, which has never happened to me in there. And there were a few different things that were different about last year in that area that had not been true of other areas. And so that's what I did, man. I was like, well, they're definitely not high and they're definitely not in their wintering range yet because it was too early. Like, there's only one other place to look. And I'm pretty sure that any elk that was in that unit was in that middle range just kind of in that transition period. And, you know, like I said, there were a lot of variables that I think forced their hand to do that earlier than they usually would have, but sure as day, they were in there in spades. And that was super helpful, you know, good information you gave me.

So I'm glad, man.

I really got a job.

Yeah, well, and it's. I don't know, it's just fun because I, like, want to see my friends do well, you know, and like everyone who gets a hold me, I'm just like rooting for, you know?

Yeah, it's awesome.

It's probably very similar to how you feel, you know, when someone gets a hold of you and you're like, all right, brother, we got a journey ahead of us. You know, we got to start from square one. But, like, it's fun to watch it.

All right, hold on one second. So the WI FI guy came yesterday, was supposed to come yesterday, still couldn't. So I'm. I'm using a hotspot off of my phone on a fold out table that I cut elk meat on. Propping this mic up On a tote. So this is my setup for the day.

This is just real life. Right.

But yeah, to your point, it's exactly the way I feel is, it's, it's actually funny you bring this up. We, I just had a meeting a little bit ago with one of the folks in our group who's done extremely well. And you know, he's, he's doing really well into what we call the maintenance phase of our program. And part of that is because he's taken so much of that information. Like our philosophy is very much teach a man to fish rather than give him a fish. And so we spend time educating people on elements of nutrition that really set them up for long term success. And obviously there's a application piece that's needed there on the part of the person, but if they do that, you know, I always tell people my goal is to create autonomy for you. So much so that I work myself out of a job. If you don't need me anymore, then I've done my job. So, yeah, it's a lot of fun to see people move from just being completely confused about all the information on nutrition that they've heard over the years online, to feeling fully adequate, to not only having had reached their goals, but feeling completely adequate to do this on their own. And then obviously you spend so much time with the person throughout that journey that a lot of those people end up becoming friends later. And you just, you know, you, you had said you just want your friends to win. And that's exactly the way this is. You want them to do well. And so it's like, yeah, look, there's, there's no secrets. The more tools that I can give you, the better off you're going to be In a lot like hunting with what you do, you can give a guy to catch fish, but if he doesn't go fish, if he doesn't apply them, what am I? You know, like, I'm not giving, not giving away the, I'm not giving away the, the, the shop here either. And that's what's interesting about hunting and about what you do. I feel like I'm rambling, but is deer and elk and anything really live anywhere? Right? I mean, you could give a guy a pen where you've seen elk and there are no elk there, but if you give him the tools needed, this type of, you know, this type of area, this type of country, this type of elevation band, whatever, right? All the different things. Well, now that all of a sudden gives him options on where to go if they're not at that pin, giving him a pin. So, yeah, I think the work that you do is awesome. Makes me excited for you to see you doing it full time.

Thanks, man. I think we probably need to just start the podcast at this point because we've both. You've, like, talked about some, like, really fundamental stuff to what you do, and, you know, you helped me out. I had a few years ago at this point, like, really try to dive into, dial in my nutrition. And it's funny, like, one of the first things you taught me was like, well, we'll track it. And I was kind of like a stick in the mud. I mean, I tracked a little bit, and then I was like. And I kind of fell off or whatever, and I was just like, okay, it's fine. Like, I got this, I got this. And do you think, like, you know, do you think that you find most people that you help, the best are the ones who just do the thing. Like, they're not particularly talented or gifted in any way, but they just do the. Do the steps.

Oh, yeah. I mean, there's no question that, you know, there is a huge correlation between someone's ability and willingness and attitude towards tracking and their success. And that's because it is a. It's a numbers game, right? At the end of the day, regardless of what you want out of nutrition, be it, you know, weight and fat loss or performance nutrition on a mountain, or performance nutrition when training, it's a numbers game. And what, what the tracker does is it takes away all ambiguity, it takes away all uncertainty, and just becomes a hundred percent factual. So if you come to me and you're having a problem, any problem as it's related to nutrition or training or whatever, and, and you have the data, I can, you know, I can guarantee you we can fix it. But if you come to me and you're having a problem and you give me really subjective answers about what you've been doing, I can give you a general idea of many things it could be, but I can't really direct you. So, yeah, the, you know, the tracking. We say that tracking serves two purposes. One, it helps us achieve the goal, and number two, it teaches about nutrition. I mean, it's. It's not something that I think needs to be done forever, but it definitely takes away a lot of the uncertainty and gives people some precision. And, you know, one of the things that we are big on is you are going to rise and fall. This will. You'll love this because this fits directly in with what you do, you're going to rise and fall to the level of your systems, right? People, we are prone to want to be outcome driven, right? We want success on a hunt. We want weight loss. We want improved performance. We want the outcome. The reality is, is that the outcome is going to be what the outcome's going to be. You could do everything right, and still not control that outcome. But what you can measure is your system. Did you apply the system? Is your system created? And does your system put you in the best position possible for the outcome that you're saying you want? And you can measure a system, right? And so if your system is in place and it's set up to be. Exactly what if it's set up to deliver the outcome that you want? You know, at that stage of the game, the outcomes, you know, all pretty much guaranteed, especially with nutrition, it's a little different than hunting, right? I mean, we are all. We are all, to some degree, kind of relying on the animal, reading the playbook, you know, kind of. But you get yourself in a. You get yourself. As I say that, I think of guys like Robbie Denning and Travis Nowotney and Russ Meyer, who. It's like, those dudes could go into the ocean and find a mule deer and kill it, right? It's just like somehow there's some of those guys that just. I mean, they violate the whole luck principle and still are able to pull out the biggest animal in any unit, in any state. But for the most part, I think you. I think it still applies.

Yeah, no, I. Dude, you're hitting on the. It is exactly what I think about. You know, it's like you can't control whether you take one home, right? Like, most of the time, but you can surely control whether you see them or find them. Maybe you can't control whether you access them, but, like, if. If you're putting the pieces together, like, on principle, it's way better than if you're just hoping that you're kind of doing it right and you're just walking around in the woods. I feel like that's the same thing with nutrition is like, especially when people are following fads or whatever, like, people are just like, picking up a thing. Be like picking up a bugle tube and be like, this is going to work and not knowing how to use it, you know?

Yeah, yeah. And. And, you know, I think what's interesting and probably again, direct overlap with what you do is we live in a day where we have never had more information on any topic. You could want Right. And also never lived in a day where people have been more confused about any topic that you can think of. And so, you know, I think that's what's really important with the work that you do. And hopefully the work that we do is we bridge the gap for people. And what's interesting, even that we are starting to see and hear feedback on is in a day where you have something like AI software that can generate these answers, we find almost the opposite, that people want human communication. There's a trust thing with AI, and even AI get some of these answers wrong. And so, yeah, the, the, the ability to clarify things and, you know, clear up misconceptions or to be able to ask questions like, how does this correlate to me? Right, Because AI doesn't know you. It doesn't know your height, your weight, your metabolic rate, your daily activity level, your genetics. It doesn't know those things. And so to be able to, to take some of that information and translate it into a person in a way that they can go create a system that work is what we really try to do. And, you know, hopefully everybody that we, we work with feels like we do that well.

It's so funny. So I've got a. This is a very applicable story to what you do, but my girlfriend is really into fitness. She's really into nutrition. And she'd been really consistent with watching what she was eating, not just going in her mouth, but like, she was eating good stuff and making sure that it, like, fit this, like, caloric bounds, basically. And she wasn't getting anywhere. She was like, still, you know, she's, she's strong, very strong and lifts well and is in good cardio shape. But she's like, man, I'm not going towards my goals still after like a month or two. And I was, you know, at some point in that transition, in that time frame, I was like, you know, maybe you just gotta pick up your caloric expenditure, like, increase. Instead of doing, you know, five days a week of strength training, you gotta maybe like increase your caloric expenditure or whatever. And largely this is from stuff that you talk about and preach is like, it's just a math equation. And like, if you're stalling out, you got to either decrease calories or increase expenditure. And then we walked into her nutrition shop where one of her friends works and did a body scan and he goes, I think you just need to increase your caloric expenditure. And he just. And she goes, oh, my God, I'm sorry, I heard you say it, but it Took some third party to like reinforce it for it to land. And I think that that's where you come in is like you're just, that you're the third party that you can really just. People can watch or listen or read about what they need to do, but your talent is like, you cut out the BS and just help people get there. I mean, I feel like that seems to be your main approach. Would you agree?

Yeah, I mean, my, you know, my philosophy is, number one, nutrition is very basic. Very, very basic. What matters with nutrition and the hook that I have seen a lot of companies try to pitch is keeping the person confused. Because if you're confused, you're on. Right. And that means more revenue for the company. But it's not that, it's not that complicated. So we have, you know, our, our, our drum that we have consistently beat is master the basics and be relentlessly consistent. That is what you, you know, to the goal. So yeah, there are a lot of nuances in how you can deal with that math equation. And I think that's one thing that we've seen in our work kind of transform over the years is, you know, once you, once you weed through some of those basics, the biggest question people have is on strategy. It's like, okay, well I, I hear what you're saying. How do I do that in the mix of working a full time job, having two kids that are involved in sports, I know I travel for work every other week. You know, how, how do I integrate all of these things to be consistent enough with these basics to where the winds do begin to start to stack up? And so yeah, we, we try to make it as basic as possible. What's, you know, what's, what's been interesting or funny to me is like, I think that's what we've become known as, is like, oh, those are the guys that make it simple. And, and in a world where everybody's talking about genetic testing and all this stuff, it seems more of the basics. And I've got to be honest with you that this whole philosophy really arose from me in school going through this and sitting in these classes with people that are a lot smarter than I was and hearing the professors, you know, give me information and not knowing any of it. So I basically just resorted to spending my time in class, you know, taking notes at a fever pitch and then going and researching what some of these words meant. So I had to distill it down into really, really basic stuff, you know, like, like, you'll appreciate this one when we talk about weight fluctuations depending on what you eat and if you've exercised or not, I think about grain bins in the Midwest, right? And the, you know, the. Whenever they fill versus when they drain, based on whether a farmer drops that off. And people, People can understand that.

And.

Yeah, and, you know, those are the type of things that we, we try to just make what has become a really confusing science a lot more digestible because it is. It's not. It's not complicated, dude.

It is.

I'm.

I'm trying to look it up, right? Like, I'm feverishly looking up. But there's a quote that's really common. You know, my, My friend Cody Rich says it all the time, but that he got from somebody as well. But it's like, you know, true mastery of a topic comes when you can distill it down to the level of a third grader. And I think that that's something. I mean, you're. You're more humbled than you would admit to say that you're at that level. But it is one of the things outside looking in. I'm like, you just. You understand it so well that you can make it digestible instead of understanding it so well or, or maybe three quarters of the way and then using big words to fill up the rest.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I. And I, I hope that's true. I mean, I, I often, you know, joke with people that I'm a, you know, one. One show pony, right? Where it's like, I can help you with nutrition, but if you want anything else from me, I'm not your guy. If there's any other topic you want advice on, that's. That's not me. I, I can help you with the nutrition piece. And, you know, part of that, I think too, you know, so for. Maybe for folks who aren't familiar, what led me to go down this path was my own weight loss almost, you know, 20 years ago or whatever. And I think what helps me understand it is that I, you know, went through that. Losing 140 pounds, but then trying to maintain that over the last 15 and 20 years, being able to kind of help teach people what I've done in different scenarios. Like, I think having had walked through that is difficult as it was all those years ago, helps me understanding at a basic level, because I had to teach myself at a basic level. I mean, I'm not, you know, it's not like this, you know, this natural and in fact, like when I was, when I was. When I was thinking about what I wanted to study in school. The career, the career counselor. She very much. It discouraged me from taking this route because it's heavy, chemistry focused. And man, I had no chemistry in high school, barely did math. I was, I didn't really apply myself in high school at all. So I told her I was just like, look, I'm going to, I'm going to go down the route of, of this and if I, you know, fail out of one class, then I'll transition my major into something less science based. And man, I, I just totally poured myself into it. And a lot of what took my time was just trying to distill down all that complexity into something that made sense. I could pass the test and help other people. So hopefully, you know, hopefully that's what people, people feel like we do. And it's, it's appreciated to hear you say that. That's, that's what you see.

Yeah. And so for those who don't know or aren't familiar, I feel like you operate really well in two buckets. Like your two core buckets are helping people. Oftentimes I'll just like make it real simple, help people lose weight so they can perform better in the mountains. Like that seems to be one bucket and then the other bucket is how do you craft your nutrition when you're in the mountains to perform at your peak, would you say? That's probably. Yeah. Okay, so right now we're largely talking about the whole piece of this where people are reducing their overall body weight and in a healthy manner so they can be better in the mountains. Right. Would you say, like, what is the number one thing that you think like is, is hurting people as, as far as like reaching those goals?

That's a great question, I would say. I mean, I would say that there is no question. So when, when someone gets interested in valley to peak in our program, we have them fill out an application for no other reason than it helps give me an idea of what it is that they want.

Right.

And it helps that it's a guided, you know, there's several question that really helps them distill down into so many words what it is that they want. On that, on that, on that application form, there's a question that says what's been your greatest barrier? Hands down, the number one question has been confusion. They have no idea where to begin, how to begin. They may have all the motivation on the planet, but you know, like all of us, we're, we are all sometimes willing to invest the time, but we want an ROI for that investment. Right. We want, if. If we're going to invest it, we want to be sure it's in the right thing rather than kind of thinking it is. And what's also interesting is that most people at this point have tried one, if not three of the dogma type of diets, found that it works for a little bit, was unsustainable. Right. And so those are. Those are generally what we see is that, number one, either people are immensely confused, or number two, they've tried something that's worked, but there was something about it that did not produce the outcome that they wanted as a whole. And oftentimes that's either one. It was unsustainable. I couldn't keep doing it, not with, you know, now. Not now that I'm married and I've got kids and I've got a job. It was great. Whenever I was, you know, in isolation in college with no obligations, but not. I can't do it now. Um, and, or number two, I followed this thing, but I had no energy. I couldn't train for the mountains, or when I did train, I would just fall completely flat halfway through a training session, or I couldn't move beyond a barrier in strength. Some sort of outcome that led to them being that. That led to it, you know, the, the nutrition approach being prohibitive to improving performance, which you can argue at that point, like, what's the point? And so those tend to be the two things. And so we've built. We've kind of built a. A model that helps give people some direction and really condense down what their goals are based on different periods of interest to them. And then we build a program around that, knowing that you can always change that period of interest. For example, if you've got a, you know, if you were on a cancellation list and you get a sheep hunt booked and that sheep hunts in eight weeks, this is not a time for you to be dropping weight. You need to maybe pay attention. Maybe not a pint of ice cream, just a dish at night, or like, pay attention a little bit, but make sure you're giving your body the fuel that it needs so that you can train to get ready for that sheep or goat hunt or whatever it is now. When you come back, if you feel like, oh, yeah, I really, you know, now I feel like is the time I probably need to put some focus on my weight, my health. And then you transition, that's the time to do it. Right. And so I think that that's a huge piece of it is There's a lot of conversation right now going around about how you can build muscle and lose body fat in X number of days. And there are. There are instances where that's true, but there are also reasons why there are caps and limitations on that. And I think people really being able to have a realistic, you know, an expectation of what's actually real versus what you read on some promo is huge because you'll get a lot of people applying a lot of focus and attention in time, not seeing the outcome that they feel like they should be seeing and discouraged, and they quit. Right. And who. Who could blame them? Right. It's the definition of insanity. Doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results, and it never comes. So, yeah, I think that, you know, the program started with, like, yeah, nutrition calories, and it's morphed into so many other things that, again, I think are best distilled down into saying, we really want people to understand the breadth of how all of this works, because then you can really start to make some progress.

Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. So as we sit now, we're. I know this is kind of crazy, but we're like three months from September, and when this comes out, it's like, bulls will be bugling when this is three months from now. And that's kind of mind boggling. I was just talking to a fellow the other day who I was working with, and, you know, I probably made some snap judgments. He's doing a little bit of working out, but I'm like, oh, buddy. Like, I hope he really kind of kicks it in gear here and gets ready for his Colorado hunt. Um, what kind of like, as you're staring down the barrel three months from hunting season, you're like, I want to be at the best. How much of that. How many. You know, maybe walk through some principles, but, like, how much of that are you looking at? Is. Is diet related versus training related?

Well, I think it. It's always going to vary, right? So, like, here's a couple of examples. You could have a guy who has never done anything, never tried anything, never tried to weight loss, never paid attention to his d, picked up a weight or gone for a hike or anything. If that guy, you know, if that guy goes for walks in the evening and eats one bite less of ice cream, he could lose 25 pounds between now and September. Right. Just very small changes, and that dude's gonna morph. If you have another person, though, who has already invested some time, maybe they've already seen some Weight loss or they're already lean and they want to get leaner, they're already strong, but they want to get stronger or whatever. It's going to take more time, right? And so I think that, I think that having a realistic expectation based on that is, is, is really important. One thing we can all do though is try and a phrase that we use all the time and I love is focusing on being consistently good rather than occasionally great will always improve you. So maybe you can't go for these giant rocks, but maybe you can go for a couple or maybe you can invest 20 minutes or you can, you know, buy some sand at Home Depot when, when covet hit and everything shut down. I created a, a, you know, workout area in my garage and I used to straps and a garden hoe for a pull up bar and I had some contractor bags and bags of sand that I use for snow in the bed of my pickup. I cut those bags of sand up and built dumbbells out of contractor bags and duct tape. So it does not need to be fancy. You don't need some huge investment. But making small changes consistently over the next 12 weeks will most definitely get you further than doing, than doing nothing. Right? So I don't know if that directly answers your question, but I think that for most, most people, not true of all. If they just start doing little things every day, those little things generally add up to a big, big change if they do them every day consistently right. Maybe you don't eat the ice cream after dinner, maybe you don't get two burgers, you get one. Maybe you don't eat five slices of pizza, you eat two. Maybe you buy a bag of fruit and that's your snack instead of a candy bar, right? I mean those, those things alone would reduce a guy's calorie intake by close to 700 a day. If he does that for the next 12 weeks, you're gonna be hard pressed to not see some change. And it's like, and notice in there, I didn't say don't eat any candy, don't eat any hamburgers, don't eat any ice cream, don't eat any pizza with your kid. I didn't say that. Instead of five, eat two. Instead of two, eat one, right? Get the small fry instead of the large, skip the milkshake, get water. Simple stuff that over time consistently done adds up to pretty big wins.

Dude, that's so good. And I, I gotta admit, I probably wasn't giving this fella enough credit because he sounds like he's Doing exactly what you're just talking about. He's like making the increment. It's the incremental changes. Like time and pressure make diamonds, right? Like it's doing it long term.

What I, now what I will say is, is I would say one of the great. You take that same example person, not even your, not even your client that you're talking about, but let's just say that it's an example person and they do the changes. I just said I'd say the greatest hang up that we see for people is the weekend comes and those things go out the window. The consistency is gone. Right. And so the consistent element of that is hands down, you know, the difference between success and none. And that is, that is often what happens is the weekend gets away from you. You know, depending on a person's plan, sometimes they'll be like, well, I just felt like I deserved the week after working so hard during the week. And the challenging part that exists with that you talk about it being just a math equation is the math equation doesn't care what you deserve. All it knows is what's coming in and what your expenditure is. And it will produce results solely based on that. Not what you felt like you deserved or what you thought might be okay. And that's what's tough, right, Is you can kind of, and that's where I'm a huge fan of the tracker and is if that's happening and it's not making sense to you, we can go figure out why it's not and figure out what to do.

Yeah, it's kind of like your, your caloric intake and expenditure doesn't work. A 40 hour work week, right?

That's exactly right.

Which I think is, is one of the hardest parts about the consistency. Like you're saying one of the things that, yeah, is really important to me as, as I'm looking at this stuff, and this is one of the reasons why I want to talk to you about it, is crafting something that's like real sustainable. Right. You hear everybody talk about, oh, let's get on the carnivore diet or I'm gonna go keto or whatever the case is. And oftentimes you don't hear people doing that same diet a year later. So what are, what are your thoughts on like doing things that are sustainable as far as, you know, crafting a diet that's gonna get you to your goals?

I think number one, you know, asking yourself when you're doing it, can I picture myself doing this in six Weeks, six months, six years on vacation with my kids. If the answer to those things are no, I might then ask myself, how would I modify it to make it to where I'd say yes, I wouldn't quit it. I wouldn't throw the baby out with the bathwater. I'm not going to condemn any dogmatic diet approach. I mean, this stage of the game, as crazy as some of these are, we all know someone who's had success on them. So, you know, at the end of the day, the reason why is a deficit. But it doesn't matter. If the strategy works and creates a deficit, then, then it does. I would say, I would say this too. Just, just kind of spitballing some ideas. For most people, the excess calories don't necessarily come in the form of a meal. It comes in random consumption between meals. Lattes, little grab here at the boss's desk, a little grab there after dinner, extra chicken nuggets off the kids plate, a couple boxes of fries or a couple extra fries out of the medium. Getting the ones off the bottom of the bag. It's those things. If you simply true up your intake to say, I'm gonna eat, however, whatever timing you like, right? Breakfast, lunch, dinner, just lunch and dinner, whatever. I'm gonna eat three structured meals and I'm just gonna cut the intake out between meals. I think that that alone we've seen do a lot for people. We've had guys that are on the road, truckers who struggle to, you know, navigate like a restaurant menu. And I'll just say, look, whatever you normally get, just get half, take the other half home, make that lunch, and they lose weight on that. I will say this too, because I know that you are, you're LinkedIn with these guys. And I'm a huge fan too with Mountain Tough. And we do a lot of work with Mountain Tough. We did a challenge or, you know, I developed a, a program that became a challenge with them on the Mountain Tough app called the Live Ready Challenge. And there were eight basic rules in there, and it was really simple stuff like make sure you have protein when you. That challenge included not eating out during the week. But so there's, there's eight simple rules in that that I think are, are really, really effective and good. But it's, it's those basics and asking yourself that question of can I envision myself doing this and if I can't, how can I modify it?

Yeah, that makes sense. Dude. I, I just was listening to this great debate and you brought, you brought up, you Said the P word. I was listening to this great discussion with Andrew Huberman and then another scientist discussing people's necessary protein intake. And you know, for, for those of us who are hunters, I think we hear people like Huberman talk about increase your protein load and we're like, oh yeah, that's eat more red meat. Like that's right up my alley. So I just, you know, have, it feels like right now that high protein diets are like the playbook, especially for our crowd of like, who hunt.

Yeah.

Is that, is there any, is there any magic to that or is that just a simple kind of like you're more full and therefore don't take in as much calories?

Yeah, that's. So that's a major part of it. You know, the word that we use for that is your satiety and simplified. That basically means it is more feel filling at the meal and you get a prolonged sensation of, of fullness after the meal. It's going to hold you longer. Right. Whenever there's more protein. And part of that is a major part of the reason why is there's a, there's a mechanism, or you could view it as a valve that sits between your small intestines in your stomach. Right. And how, how often that mechanism or that valve opens and closes depends on the presence of protein. So the more protein that's present at that meal, the slower that valve's gonna open and close, which means the longer food is gonna sit with you, thereby you're less hungry, thereby you consume fewer calories, thereby you lose weight. So, you know, I think that that is in the most simple terms, one of the reasons we see higher protein intakes help lead to more weight loss. You talked about Carnivore earlier. Another mechanism that controls the speed in which that valve opens is fat. So if you have a diet that is really high in fat, really high in protein, that valve is seldom open and closing. And people on Carnivore complain of very little hunger because there's probably food there, you know, often, oftentimes. Now I think that the, the other, the other piece of the protein puzzle is, is this just hitting a protein threshold, just hitting a single number is no magic. And what we do find a lot of times right now is people are eating and buying protein bars, protein chips, protein ice cream, protein powder, all these supplemental protein things. If you're just hitting this threshold or this number with all these products, you are, you know, in to some degree violating the intention or the purpose or the value of protein. I'll Come back to that in a minute. When you talk about muscle retention or. But if you're talking solely about weight loss and satiety, whey protein process is one of the fastest processing proteins that we know to where that valve isn't having that mechanism isn't doing the same thing that a piece of elk is or a piece of venison is. And so just hitting this number, thinking, well, if I hit this number, it'll help me with weight loss. Not necessarily. It depends on the rest of the composition of your diet. It depends on the source of protein, it depends on the portion of protein. Was it enough to really hold you over? You know, that's a part of it too. Now, you know, depending on the degree of the deficit, if you put someone in a really, really big calorie deficit, there is a much greater chance that a portion of their weight loss is muscle. And so you've got to remember there is a difference between weight loss and fat loss when you get on that scale, and it's like, I'm in this huge deficit. I lost 30 pounds in 30 days. And most of that was probably muscle, right? So you have to remember there's a difference there. Now, hitting this protein threshold, this target number that you've got on a calculator or heard on Huberman or whatever will put you in a better position, regardless of the source, to hold on to your muscle while you are losing weight. Right? But that is, you know, hitting protein threshold in a deficit is not the sole thing that's gonna determine whether you lose muscle or whether you lose body fat. And you know, on the same note, where some is good, more isn't always better. Right? And so like the, the phrasing that we use here is once boiling water is boiling, it doesn't get more boiled. Once it sits on the stove longer, it's there right now, I think once you hit a certain threshold, beyond that can just be excess calories. You know, at that stage of the game, it's just, I mean, it's no different than going overboard on, on anything. So, yeah, there's a lot, you know, there's a lot of things to, to think to. And so we simplify this messaging in our own program with people by simply saying, look, anytime you eat a meal, have a dose of protein, choose it, it doesn't matter to me what it is. Have a dose of protein, sprinkle it in regularly throughout the day. So each time that you're eating to a certain dose, and you're probably going to be covering most of your basis with that. All these other little nuanced conversations about it are more than likely going to be covered simply by doing, by doing those two things. Because, you know, a major part of the muscle retention, muscle building element of protein as well as the satiety is keeping that protein in the bloodstream Most of the time. If the body needs it for recovery, it's available. And so the pattern that we see in the U.S. oftentimes is people will stop by and they'll get a latte and a muffin. No real protein in the morning. Might grab a bag of pretzels and a diet Coke at lunch, maybe a Snickers bar around noon. No real protein. 90 ounce T bone with a 42 ounce baked potato at dinner. Right. It's like 106 grams of protein at once. It'd be more ideal to have that trickle in throughout the course of the day. So there's always a supply to pull from.

Okay, that makes a lot of sense, man. Well, it also makes a lot of sense as to why I probably lost so much weight last hunting season. Because eating backpacking foods and like, you know, just throwing it, whatever in my stomach, I ended up losing like 15 pounds. And I, I felt, I, you know, went in pretty strong and I felt pretty small coming out after guiding and everything. So let's assume someone has this like kind of off season plan dialed. Then you're hitting, like hitting the ground running, especially as a western hunter. How do things look different or do they look different when it comes to your diet and you're in the middle of hunting season?

Well, I think it, I mean, it's going to depend on how much that guy is hunting for one. And, and here's my answer for the guy that's hunting a lot, right? So I live in Idaho. Many of runs, like by the time, by the time August 15th or so is rolling, it's kind of like full go until November. You're just running and gunning on the weekends. And in that situation, when you're home, you want to recover well, right? And that is twofold. You want to be sure that you're getting enough protein. Make sure that your muscle recovers when you're home. But you also want to be sure that you're getting enough carbohydrate. And that's for two reasons. Number one, your muscles are relying particularly on higher intensity type of pushes, Climbing a lot of elevation, et cetera, predominantly on carbohydrate. And as the days go on, continues to drain, continues to drain, continues to Drain. Now, if you're eating carbs on the hunt, it's gonna fill up. But it. That goes back to the grain bin reservoir that we talked about earlier. When you're home and you've got a little more downtime, you allow those bins to fill back up to max capacity, which puts you in a great position when you do go back out to not feel like you're just dragging tail from having had been out all last weekend either. Second thing that it does is it preserves that protein to be used for recovery instead of using portions of that protein for fuel. Right. So the body can, in the state of need, but not enough intake of carbohydrate, use parts of the protein. So you, you really want to be sure that you're kind of getting a mix of those different nutrients to be sure that you're able to go back out and, you know, really make a push. The other thing that I would say and that we get a lot of questions a lot about is, you know, should I carb load before a hunt? And I would say no. I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't, you know, be days out. Just pound. You don't need to, I should say days I'll be pounding, you know, bowls of pasta, etc. In preparation for car blow. Like hunting isn't, you know, the, the, the cadence of hunting isn't the same as the cadence of, you know, different, different type of events where, where carb loading is more appropriate. But yeah, I think the recovery element of it is really important, especially for guys that are going a lot. But if you get a guy from, let's say, Midwest or the east who's coming out, once you're, you're. Your game plan is preparation ahead of time, right? The 12 weeks beforehand, truing up those little things that might need a little bit of truing so that you feel good when you do get here and then staying on top of your game when you are here. That's the biggest thing. One of the biggest things we see is, you know, you'll feel good on day one, two, three, catches up with you on day four, if you're not paying attention. Day five, you kind of got to stay in camp and, you know, but to, to, to stay strong for 7, 8, 10, sometimes 14 days. Sometimes guys are taken off for a couple weeks when they make the big trip out here. You really gotta stay on top of your nutrition. And again, that's carbohydrate and protein intake. And so, you know, we condense this into simple messaging by just saying totals and timing, you need to be sure that you're getting enough. So that's your totals, and you need to be sure that you're taking it in with enough frequency to prevent you from ever having too big of a dip. And that's your timing. Right. And now that you know, what are the. What are the timing numbers on that? That can vary depending on the situation of the hunt. You take a late season hunt where you're kind of driving around a little bit more and getting out, you know, and it's. It's wet and cold, the timing might be very little. Whereas if you talk about man, September, chasing elk all over the planet, you know, lots of undulation, lots of miles, the timing could be very frequent, you know, to the point of where it's almost like a through hike where you're just kind of eating all day long to stay on top of it so that you still feel as good on day five as you did day one.

Oh, that makes total sense. So, you know, we were kind of talking earlier about your elk hunt. That was a grind last year. How did. How did that look like? I. I mean, kind of tell the story of. Of what you're. What you were doing and what you were seeing and like. And then. And then also, like, talk about, like, maybe how you're trying to feel yourself for it too, but how'd that kind of go?

Yeah, well, I told you I'd brag you up because I was. Well, I'll. For good reason. So, you know, I had a. I had an elk tag where I've hunted quite a bit over the years and really know this area very, very well. You've been with guys, killed elk in it. We've hauled elk out. We've seen elk. I mean, I know it very, very well, and I could not find an elk to save my life, man. And not even just an elk. Like, I couldn't find sign. I couldn't find anything. It made absolutely no sense to me at all. So I hunted.

Was this archery or rifle?

Just to clarify, this one was rifle. But I've hunted this. I've hunted this same area and archery and rifle. And, you know, I've been in there a lot. Yeah. Yeah. So couldn't find anything to save my life. Hunted seven days without seeing anything, even a track. Now, this is where you come into play for two reasons. Number one, I sent you a message just kind of expecting. Just like, I mean, exactly what we talked about with AI it's like, hey, here's my situation. You Know, but I, you know, what, what am I missing? Trying to get some verification, like here's what I've done. What am I not seeing here? What's a new set of eyes that's not, doesn't have the emotion that's attached to this, doesn't have the tag, doesn't have an empty freezer. You know, getting a new set of eyes on it. And you know, I was kind of expecting you to reply and say, say like ah, you might check, you know, mid level stuff or this elevation band or whatever. You went into the unit, highlighted a whole unit, gave me a breakdown of where they would be, why they might be there. And so you are a, a, a, a master of your craft, man. And so I just wanted to be sure that I told you how much I appreciated that because you've been awesome. But come day eight, that's exactly what I did. I, I had checked high and there's, you know, there's a lot of different circumstances that made that unit made that zone a little more difficult to hunt last year than usual. And so I went to about the only place that I hadn't been, which was kind of their mid level stuff and they were all in there and. Yeah. So the last day of the season. So day seven, I ended up glassing. I mean I would imagine that day we, I made probably glass 200 plus elk. Oh man. And you found them? Oh yeah. I mean I think I would imagine a vast majority of them were in that, that, that area. They were just everywhere. Every time you put your glass up in this general vicinity, there would be, you know, groups of eight or 10 and then you'd think you'd find 20. And collectively, you know, there had to have been well over a couple hundred different elk in there. And so that was on the evening of day seven. The following day was the last day of the hunt, final day of the season. So I kind of put a game plan together that evening, woke up in the morning, walked up the hillside, shot a bull at 8am.

You make that sound so easy.

I wish, dude. The emotional toll, like that's the thing is, is like, like, you know, it's like nutrition. It's like training. It's like anything when, when you invest so much time and emotion, it's like you're just spent. I started thinking I was crazy. I was like, you know, you get down on yourself. You're like, I, you know, I've had so many great people teach me how to hunt. I didn't grow up doing it and moved out here almost 15 years ago or whatever and got introduced to it by my father in law and fell in love with it. And man, just had so many people take me under their wing and teach me and you know, like, I don't know if you talk about this in your own podcast, but there's. They say there's like this 10 year learning curve and that can suck to hear, but man, that was true for me. It's like every year you're picking up on something new and it's like, oh, the accumulation of that over eight or 10 years, you're finally able to put it all together very naturally. And then it's just like. And then it just makes sense to you, you know? And so anyway, I was feeling like I was there and I was like, yeah, maybe I don't know what I'm doing, you know, and. But yeah, I just, you know, ended up finding that elk. But I think like, nutrition, like training, like anything else, you just can't quit, man. I mean, I, I knew that much of it and that's, that's what's so great about physically training. Forget composition, forget aesthetics, forget health. It's like, you know, there's been very few training sessions I've showed up to and felt like, this is awesome. I want this to go forever. It's. It's always like, man, this is tough, but I'm not gonna quit. And it was very much the same on this, this elkon. I was like, well, I'm not gonna, I'm definitely not gonna find one at home, you know, and so it's just like, you just keep, you just keep showing up, you keep trying different places. And I've got a, I've got a buddy who's been just really great to me and taught me a ton about hunting. And you know, the, the, the phrase that he always throws out there that I got annoyed with and joke with him about? He's like, yeah, just keep poking around. You just keep checking places, different elevations, different. You know, you just got to keep looking. And you are. If you, you know, if you're persistent and, and you, you follow the playbook, the opportunity of at least getting your eyes on them and trying to put together something together is, Is pretty, pretty high.

So in this hunt, you were out there eight days. By the time you got one, was it a hard pack out? Like, were you back there pretty far?

I would love to tell you that I was, but I was not.

Let's go. No, that's my, that's my point, man. Like, you don't like it doesn't not all these hunts have to, to be some physical grueling thing to get out.

But nope, this one was good for you. Yep, this and I, I mean I had no shame at all. I was like, I, I will, I will take it now I'll compare that to and I'll, I'll sort of add in the nutrition piece of this that you had asked about. You know, last year I had a, a doll sheep tag in Alaska in, in August September time frame, which was a 12 day sheep hunt. And the, the guide is a friend of mine. This was a cancellation hunt, which is how it opened up to me. Just a huge once in a lifetime opportunity blessing that will never happen again to me. But I was all over it whenever, you know, the opportunity knocked. The caveat was is that the place that he was interested in hunting was it's foot only and it's 20 or so more miles back before you even start hunting. So we went in, we were going to go in for 12 days and that was, it was physically demanding, but man, so rewarding. So, so, so rewarding. Now on, on something like that, you know where you're going in for 12 days, food's probably, food is easily the heaviest thing that you've got and it's really physically demanding at that stage of the game. You kind of are thinking about calorie density. How can I get quite a few calories in here in a really small package, yet also not shortchange myself on the right type of calories? So I fall apart. Right. I mean I can have just a bottle of olive oil to last me all week, but my muscles are going to fatigue very quickly because there's no protein in a bottle of olive oil. So you kind of have to, you kind of have to parse that out to try to find the best balance that you can. And so, you know, that's exactly, that's exactly how, how we laid that out by just trying to make sure that there were, you know, plenty of protein for the recovery that was needed as well as now plenty of it, but not excess of it. And I will say this too, one of the things that we focus on between creating a plan for someone at home versus in the backcountry, the protein in the backcountry is quite a bit less than what it is at home because the goal is not muscle building, it's muscle recovery and the quantity of protein needed for those two different or two different numbers. Right. And so I'm not trying to Hit hundreds of grams of protein in the backcountry. I'm trying to create a situation where I reach that saturation point of needed recovery and letting that be what it is. Which is a lot easier to do because protein's tough to come by in the backcountry. Most of it needs refrigeration or it needs cooking or it needs, you know, this or that. So you got to get kind of, kind of creative to, to make sure that you get enough protein in. But yeah, that's, you know, that's that. The logistics on something like that is definitely more challenging than when you've got a base camp and you're coming back every day where you got a cooler you can pull stuff from. And so, you know, we're always thinking about that whenever we help people plan for hunts is, you know, what does the hunt itself look like? What are you planning to do? You backpacking in, you're going to have a base camp, you're going to be at your car, you guys getting a, you know, a hotel in town. And then you can really start to build together, you know, put together a plan.

Yeah, no, that makes total sense. But it also, like, as you're saying that it also means whether you're having a base camp or you're doing a hotel, like, you know, it's worth it to have an extra cooler that has, you know, a bunch of last year's elk burger in it to be eating and throwing in your meals than it is. Like my family's always been like notorious for just getting a bunch of stroganoff and like different hamburger. Like help, like not hamburger helper because we wouldn't have the hamburger part very often. But essentially like, you know, we're just trying to shortchange it with the fastest food that we can make at night, you know. And so it sounds like really when someone even as simple as just as car camping, it's like, hey, me make sure that you're getting that protein in that you still need.

Yeah, I mean it's. So I'll give you an example. I had a late season cow tag probably three years ago, and we were planning to set up a base camp and set up a wall tent and just kind of, you know, freeze dry meal it and do our normal stuff. But the temps were, you know, the nighttime lows were calling for between negative 9 and negative 13 or so. With daytime highs being single digits or tension. We, we all, you know, we had plenty of gear that would keep us warm at night. But because the logistics and challenges. Getting out of time, out of town on time. Just didn't feel like trying to get up there at night, trying to hammer, you know, tent stakes into frozen ground, trying to, you know, the constant chore and theme of keeping water from getting frozen so you can eat anything in the mornings. So when I saw those, I was like, we're getting a hotel.

Yeah.

And in that situation where you're on a late season hunt and it's, you know, dark by five and you're in a hotel, like there is no better way than to kill some time grilling burgers on the back of a tailgate and you know, hanging out and just making it a, making it an experience. You know, a lot of times these trips can be just run and gun and you know, you're, you're trying to, you put the kids to bed, you bomb out of town at 9pm, you get up there at midnight, you're hiking until two, you sleep, you hunt for two days and then you're hiking out at night to get back at home, put the kids in bed by Sunday night. And you know, like the experience part isn't there as much. Yeah.

Cyclone. Just trying to keep our heels on the bus turning.

Yeah, man, it's, it's a, you know, it's, it's a lot tougher once you get kids and stuff into the mix. But yeah, I think that's one thing that I've grown to really appreciate and love over the last few years is of course I want to accomplish a goal while I'm there, but also really trying to make sure that I like enjoy the experience and the people that I'm with and taking the time to take a couple packs of burger up so we can do that on a couple of nights rather than like, let's just throw some freeze dried stuff in, put a jet boil in the hotel room or the back of the tailgate or whatever. So yeah, it's a lot of fun to do whenever it's a late season hunt like that. But to the, to the point of the topic that we were talking about, it does open up a lot of options for how to get those carbohydrates in, how to get the, the protein in and you know what options you've got. Yeah.

So that's like a major contrast to your backpack hunt doll sheep. Like, I mean, yeah, it's just, but I love that so many people, that's like the pinnacle, that's like what they're looking for.

Yeah.

But I don't know that they know what they're getting themselves into. And I know you, you know how to pack really smart. But like what kind of, you know, 12 day hunt, what, how heavy is your pack as you're going in?

Yeah, it was £80 is what we're going in with, which was, you know, Nalgene full of water and rifle, extra ammo, everything. It was about, about 80 going in each day. You know, I, I tried to parse it out to where I could have stuff throughout the course of the day because that just helps break up the monotony of the hunt as well. So in the morning I did a, there's a really high calorie, pretty protein packed granola that I make at home. So that's the other thing. Like I don't buy any performance products. Right. Or, or, or, or even like I even dehydrate my own evening meals just because it gives you so many vers, so much versatility. But the, the morning breakfast is I buy granola, shredded coconut, a variety of different nuts, dried fruit, coconut powder and some protein powder. And it's like a morning cereal, but it's a lot more calorie dense than oats. Right. So if I'm hunting something local where it's not going to be 20 miles in, not as physically demanding, I might just throw some oats in there with you know, variety of dried fruits, some nuts, maybe a little bit of protein powder or something simple. But the granola really increases the calorie density, especially from carbs. So I, we took that, I took that for breakfast and then I would for dinner. I had some dehydrated meals obviously and my, you know, my, my quote unquote lunch was really more of like a kids charcuterie board snack pack. And in that was some spicy trail mix, some salami and then these really high calorie. They look like a no bake but you, you do bake them. They're like a oat peanut butter protein bar. Right. And so I'll bake these things in, in muffin tins and they're about 3 or 400 calories a piece. So like total daily intake on that was push in 3,700 calories. And a lot of that is just broken up into these kind of small feedings throughout the course of the day rather than you know, one or two large ones. And lots of coffee. Lots of coffee.

That's the good. Yeah, that's always got to make it.

Yeah.

So is it like three pounds a day or more?

You know, I, people ask that and I Am very much like, I don't weigh it. I'm of the philosophy of if I, I would rather, especially when it comes to food, I'd rather have it and not need it than wish I had it and not have it to a point, right? I mean, be somewhat sensible and if that's true and I need it, it doesn't really matter what it weighs. You know, I mean, I'm going to get rid of some of these little gadgets I've got before I get rid of my food. Or I'm gonna, you know, I don't probably need seven mid layers, so maybe I can do one and you know, then use my insulation layers or my sleeping bag if things get really western, I've got other options there. So, you know, for me the food thing is, it is what it is. I want to want it, I want to want to eat it, I want it to sound good to me, right? And if, if, if those aren't happening, I'm probably not eating it, which nullifies even taking it. So I'm very much thinking along the lines of like when I start laying something out for myself or for someone is what do you want? You know, not don't think about what you should take, don't think about whether it's healthy for you or good. Or think about what you like to eat when you're out there and then start to create your plan from that. Because the only thing that's going to work is what you actually eat. So if you've got 11 days worth of high fiber bars that you can hardly stomach the idea of gnawing on and you saved 3 ounces, 4 ounces, 6 ounces, it's hard for me to make the argument that that was really worth it.

Yeah, I'm so guilty of that though. Like I have, you know, in a previous life pretty much when we started hanging out or virtually hanging out, I was working for a backcountry fuel box. And you know, it was one of those things, like the magic number I kept trying to hit was 2 pounds for you know, like 2, 000 calories or 2500 calories a day. There was two things with that. One, I would pack food that I hated eating. And two, it still wasn't even enough food to cover my calorie deficit. And I would bonk day three or four and, and have to.

I remember a bear hunt you had, right? Did you, didn't you have a bear hunt where you, if I remember right, you killed a bear. You were hiking out and really Hit a pretty big wall coming out of there.

Dude. I crashed bad. I think it was probably 2020.

Yeah.

And yeah. And you know, luckily I had someone the next day join me and, and they brought me pizza and, and coffee and it still wasn't enough. I was dying on that one. But it wasn't necessarily, it was a tough backup, but it wasn't like some, it wasn't like a multi day backpack hunt. And that's just like, feels a good lesson. Man, I love that. I love your philosophy though. It's like, don't pack it if you're not going to eat it.

Yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, obviously there's a point where you can't like take sub sandwiches back there, but. Although, you know, I guess if a guy had the will, he could. But yeah, I think, you know, we always kind of start with just thinking by like what, you know, what sounds good, what do you want back there, what never gets boring to you and then start creating something from that.

Well, and you also hit on a point. You're like, you know, you can ditch some gadgets or whatever to lose a little weight in your pack.

Yeah.

But to bring it full circle, if you do the right things the next three months, you're also going to lose a lot of weight on your, you know, you're going to lose some weight on your frame. And that's a, maybe not the easiest thing to ditch out of your pack, but it is probably the most valuable.

Yeah, yeah. I have a, I have a couple of good friends that live by the philosophy. You know, if you've had something in your pack for, you know, two or three trips that has never been used, throw it out. Yeah. You know, I think the obvious exception to that would be like your first aid kit, but other than that.

Yeah, that's why I, you know, when I first started backpack hunting, it was like I had a saw and then I was like, okay, I'll swap out the saw for a Leatherman then. I don't even bring a Leatherman now. I just have like a little pair of pliers, like a little tiny half ounce set of pliers. Because I found out, man, I just don't use this stuff.

Yeah, no, I'm, I'm in the same way I've cond. And, and it's, it's. Honestly it's, it's less stressful having to manage all that and wonder where it's at and make sure it's all charged. It's like. And even, even reducing the number of options of Sleeping pads and different, you know, sleeping bags for this scenario and that scenario and all these different things. It's like, man, just have one thing that, you know, you can trust and you love. Know the ins and outs of it. Rely on that. And it just reduces the stress of pre, you know, packing ahead of time significantly.

Yeah, for sure. Well, I know you've got dad duties, you got work duties and all the things this evening, but I. I can't help but ask, like, tell us, like, the story how the. How the doll sheep hunt go.

Oh, yeah, that's a good question. It went. It went great. Yeah. So we hiked in. It took us about. It took us about a day, Day and a half or so to get back in there. It was. It was. It was very rare because we had beautiful days. And that was part of the. That was part of the. The idea is, like, the first day we did about seven miles, and then, you know, we camped because we got, you know, we got started midday or whatever. But then the second day was a big push, and, you know, we were. We were pretty hosed because anybody who's ever hiked up there, the miles are not easy, ever easy, and not just because elevation and steepness, but you're dealing with tundra down low and brush, and they're. They're just very. They're very challenging. Rewarding, but challenging. And so the second day, you know, we were very much contemplating just setting up camp rather than going to where we wanted to. But, you know, the. The. The decision that we finally made was driven by the fact that we have plenty of daylight that time of year. We have absolutely no weather, and we are probably borrowing time on both of those. So, you know, it'd be better just to make the push, rest tomorrow and glass, because we'll be where we want to be for the most part. And so that's exactly what we did. Made it to camp, set up camp and start. We started glassing. And then it was on day, I believe it was day five that we started seeing some sheep, started seeing some rams. And so we. You know, there were. There were a couple of areas that we were interested in looking closer at. And, man, the classic. The classic guide move, right? My guide, who's a friend of mine, Mark Roenhorst, up in Alaska, he goes. He's like, let me just go, like, poke around over here one more time before we, you know, we head back to camp. So he goes over the ridge and he's. He's glassing. The next thing you know, he's running back with a big old smile. And, like, what's that smile? He's like, we got sheep. So he finds a band of about 17 sheep, and in that band is five rams, three of which are like. It'd be really interesting to see what these look like closer. Two of which you can clearly tell, just kind of have the banana curl and definitely not legal. And so we started, you know, putting together a game plan of what that's going to look like to try to really make an attempt to get over there the next day. And so we did. We woke up and decided that probably the best thing to do would be to drop off of the peak that we were on. We were up high, camped up high, to drop off of that and then try to hug the base of the mountain that they were on, thinking that they were high enough that they couldn't, you know, couldn't see us. And if you've ever seen sheep, man, they are as wise as it gets. They. I mean, they bet in every which direction and have every square inch of that place completely covered. And so we made it pretty far. And they. The rams definitely. I mean, they picked us off as we started to come around, There were some on the backside that we didn't know were there. And it's interesting being with someone with so. So much experience, right, Because I. I see that, and I'm like, yeah, you're screwed. That's it. We're done. And he's like, nope, just keep hiking as though you're a tourist. Just keep. Keep moving down the valley. Act like you don't see them. Act like they're nothing. Just keep moving. And then we'll circle back and see what they did. So we did. They stood up, they moved, but then they bedded right back down. And so that allowed us to make a. Kind of make a play on them. So we go take a drainage up a different side of the mountain that they're on, go to the top. And then we are on the top of this ridge, looking down over 17 sheep, you know, and you. Dude, it's just like, regardless of the tag, regardless of the hunt, regardless of the weight of what that means, having a tag in this type of hunt, probably never getting to do it again. To be on top of their beautiful bluebird day in Alaska, watching, you know, 17 sheep do their thing, I mean, that is as embedded in my head as anything else. It was. It was spectacular, really was. And so he gets spotter out, starts glassing them, and I'm next to him with my Rifle. I'd practice shooting all summer, man. I made a schedule for myself. I shot every Friday. Different positions, different round counts, everything. Trying to do everything that I, it could in my power. I end up like 160 yards over the top of these, laying completely prone on a bipod. Perfect rest.

Let's go, let's go.

I know it, man. I know it. And you know, he's counting and there's one that's clearly just seems to be a little bigger than the other two potentials. And I'm thinking if he clears me on any of them, it'll probably be him. Because, you know, for legality up there, they've either got to pass the stick test, they've got to be a certain age, they've got to be full curl, They've got to. You can't just, for anybody didn't know, you can't just start blasting. And so he's, he's trying to verify through any of those methods that they're legal. But I just keep, you know, in the scope on this one Ram thinking, you know, if he's going to give me a green line on any, I'd imagine it'll be this one. But they, they're, you know, the sheep are kind of meandering around, so about the time you start getting a, A ring count on their, on their, their horns, you know, he positions his head, you lose track of the count. And so anyway, it's like, it's dead silent. And he's. I can envision you like this. He is a great guide because he is not working me up. He's not expressing any uncertainty. He's not. Oh, yeah, I think he could be. I think he could be. I think he's doing none of that. He is silent, right? And so I'm sitting here like, you know, just not knowing what to do, you know. And so finally, out of nowhere, he's like, you can take the one facing left. He's legal. Full curl. And I was, that was the one I was watching. And so he switches his phone over to video to watch the shot to see where it hits so we can chase it. And I was not waiting. I clicked the safety off and shot. Hit him, Hit him. Great. He was quartering to me a little bit. So it came out the, you know, it hit him right behind the shoulder, came out the back. He starts stumbling and he's, you know, he's dropping, but he's not completely dropped. So the other sheep clear. And just for insurance, I shot again right behind the shoulder. And down he went. Man, that's incredible. I love that 3pm Beautiful bluebird day. And, you know, we just. That's another one of those things I was talking about earlier with the experience we just had. We didn't rush it, just soaked it up. The experience. The incredible animals they are. And, you know, got him all processed and quartered out, hiked out in that dark with the headlamps. And I think it was 1232 whenever we started making our mountain house or whatever meal we had.

Yeah.

Started making our food at night and had that ram all packed up and then started the hike out the next day.

That's incredible, man. Also, that's awesome. Very intuitive of you to be like, this guy is. He's working. Because that's my favorite thing is, like, when I'm just like, on a spotting scope and I'm just working. It's like, man, like, you know, I think a lot of guys, especially if you're a hunter yourself, you kind of get, like, anxious. You're just like, yeah, can I help? Like, can I do anything? And every time I'm just like, no, no, that's good. I'm just working, you know.

Yeah, that's exactly. Yeah. He's. I mean, he's a. He's a. He's a. He's a good friend. So I knew that He's. He's. He's. He's pretty quiet and tame by nature. But, you know, that was one thing that I really appreciated is, you know, he was never selling me on something ahead of time. Even when he found the band of 17. You know, I'm asking, like, do they look legal? And he's taking pictures and taking the ruler app and the iPhone, trying to see if he meets the stick test and if there's any potential there. He's like, we should get closer. We should get closer. That's. He's not committed. And as a. As a. As a client, that's great because the whole time, like, the whole time we're hiking at the base of the mountain, we're choosing the drainage to go up. I'm sitting in the scope. I still have no clue if I'm going to be shooting anything. There are no nerves, right? Because I don't know that. For all I know, we're sheep watching. Whereas if he had said, that one's definitely got potential. You need to watch him. You need to watch him. I could see myself, you know, getting anxious, potentially, you know, forgetting my shot process or pull in or whatever. But, yeah, I could. I could you remind me a lot of his. Just his demeanor. And I think that that's one thing that makes a really good guide, is just keeping the client calm, not getting worked up. And Mark was an awesome guide, spectacular one.

I can't speak for Mark, but I can speak for myself in that it's because I did it the wrong way a lot of times. Like the kind of thing where someone's getting set up for a shot and I'm running around trying to get them a better position, and they're just, you know, like my anxiety is increasing their anxiety, and it's just. It doesn't work very good. So I guess that's a good tip for anybody helping anybody else out. It's like, just pull a mark, man. You just keep it calm. Just be like, yeah, hold on. Yeah, just looking. That's awesome, man. Well, I'm super excited for you and it's been so fun just watching Ballad Peak grow these last handful of years, man. And so congrats on that success. And like, you already mentioned, you know, you guys have teamed up with Mountain Tough and are in the app too. So if anyone's got that app, that's. That's all your work in there for the nutrition and the live ready section. So I love it. It's really awesome.

Well, thank you. Thank you for having me and thank you for the immense amount of help that you've given me behind the scenes, man. You've. You've never taken our conversations and like, like, exploited them for, you know, Hunt west, even though you could have and should have, but you are, I think, I think your listeners deserve to know that you are as genuine of a guy behind the scenes as you are front facing and, and definitely want to say thank you to the guys at Mountain Tough because the growth of Valley to Peak, I owe a lot to those guys and I owe a lot to the guys at Exo Mountain Gear and so, and, and, and tons of guys over, you know, the years that have had me on their podcast, which I owe so much to them because that's, that's how Valley to Peak grew was on the backs of those guys. You mentioned Cody Rich earlier, and I was on his podcast, you know, in the early stages of Valley to Peak, and I owe a lot to those guys. So I want to be sure to. To say thanks where it's due and to say thanks for you for having me.

Yeah, you bet, man. That was a hell of a compliment and it didn't go unnoticed, so thank you. So where can, where can folks Connect with you. Let's just say they want some help getting ready for hunting season in whatever capacity that might be. Yeah, it's the best way to get a hold of you.

Everything is on. You know, you can re google Valley to peak nutrition or everything's under V2P nutrition with the two being the number we've got, you know, everything from free resources. We have our own podcast that we put out every other week that's, that's, you know, entirely related to the topic you and I are talking about with nutrition. We've got really low cost things, you know, to help guys get ready if they're interested for a little more guidance, coaching programs. Guys have the Mountain Tough app. You can watch, you know, all of that stuff in the app for, for free. It's part of your membership in the app. And so, yeah, we're in a lot of places, which we're grateful for and there's a range of options, you know, in terms of depth and cost. That person can find just about anything that they they want. So, yeah, Valley to peak nutrition. Google that. You could probably find more than you want.

You guys are doing an awesome service. So thanks for doing it, man. You're helping a lot of people. So.

Yeah. Well, thank you. Thanks for having us, Jane.

You bet, man. All right, we'll talk to you later.

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